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Tribute to a creative force - Dr Paul Priday

On Thursday May 11, Dr Paul Priday aged 71, sadly lost his battle with NET Cancer. Paul was a loving husband, father and friend to many and a respected creative pioneer in Australia's advertising industry.

Dr Priday charted an awarded creative career through a number of agencies including Massius Wynne Williams, Begg Dow Priday with Austin Begg and Rob Dow and then McSpedden Carey with Bani McSpedden and Peter Carey. He was national creative director of JWT after BDP was bought by JWT.

He also contributed to the industry as chair of AWARD and continued to mentor younger creatives throughout his career.

After stepping away from advertising, Priday embarked on a PHD at Sydney University and embedded himself in two of Australia’s largest advertising agencies for his thesis to understand how women were treated in the creative side of the industry.

Inspired to discover if the role of women portrayed in the hit show Mad Men continued to exist, Dr Priday observed McCann and M&C Saatchi as well as overseas agencies, coming to the conclusion that many of the barriers for women in the creative industry continued, even as the industry strove to make diversity a priority.

His controversial findings added to the debate on why few women in the Australian industry rise to creative leadership roles and the story became one of the most discussed on Mumbrella so far this year.

It was Dr Paul Priday, and his family's, last request to raise money for research into NET Cancers so that we can find a cure for this insidious cancer. Paul's friends, family and colleagues have raised an incredible $13,620, which will be put towards our $1 million dollar NET Cancer Research fund. The aim of the fund is to seed fund meaningful and unique Australian based research.